I suppose thoughts like that are more about my insecurities and need to bolster my own self-esteem than about the worth of our school and its student body. I’m so panicky about Columbia, worried that my straight-A credentials from our tiny pond will be laughed out of the running in comparison to my competition, which will be from the very best schools in the very biggest cities. The facts are only 9 percent of applicants get in, and 97 percent of the applicants are in the top 10 percent of their classes. Factor in that 57 percent of those admitted are Asian, African American, Latino, or Native American. And that only 7 percent are from New England. So 7 percent of 9 percent means that my chances of getting in are 0.63 percent, which is 1 out of 160. My mind can go on like this for hours. Days, really.
Just to beat this poor dead horse so that it can never come back to life, I’m not an athlete, I don’t debate, play chess, cheerlead, sing a cappella, or really do anything except volunteer at the vet’s. I just study hard and take photographs for yearbook. In short, I’m irresistible. I have literally cried myself to sleep over how vanilla and translucent I am and how achingly devoid of accomplishments that could let me stand out from the crowd.
Which is, I guess, why I feel so down about being ignored by Sparrow Boy. He did something more memorable in that offhand moment than I will do in my entire life. And I suppose that if he recognized a special connection between us, that would give me a little fairy dust. So, I’m not really upset about wanting attention from him; it’s just a crushing confirmation of my own averageness. It’s certainly not that I like anything about him. Without even trying, the guy is completely obnoxious. For example, having arguably (slightly) won our first skirmish, he retired victorious. He suddenly is quiet in class and answers only when called upon, at which point he delivers a brilliantly polished one-liner and then steps back to leave the field to lesser beings. Unfortunately, now that includes me.
Worse, he sits in the back of the class, never anywhere near me, let alone next to me. So I can’t see what he’s up to.
Picking up my Faulkner paper from Ms. Lambert’s desk, I notice (as in, shuffle through the papers to find) his A+. Next to which, my naked A looks like a C–. So I casually stop by after school to ask Ms. Lambert what is missing in my paper to make it less than an A+ effort. Annoyingly, she tells me not to be so hard on myself, she’s only given one A+ in her life. I decide not to warn her she has spinach stuck in her tooth and ask casually, “Anyone I know?”
She gives me a look confirming that she knows that I know who the hell I’m talking about. She then volunteers that she asked James to dial it back in class. Having me speak all the time was a great thing for the class, sort of a backboard for the other students to bounce their ideas off. With James, she fears it would be a tennis match between the two of us, which would inevitably freeze the others out.
“I get the theory just fine. I only wonder why you didn’t ask me to dial it back. Or is that a request one only makes to the A+ caste?” I ask with a smile I hope doesn’t look too snide.
She looks at me for a long moment and decides to tell me the truth. After leading with, “This isn’t a criticism,” which is always English for, “Hope you can take it,” she tells me James isn’t a student who needs to put himself forward all the time.
I will stop talking in class. I’ll show her.
After two days, he has taken over my role. Answering every question with a fresh and insightful observation on everything from the question to some thought of his own that seemed completely random until he draws it all together in this synthesis that I honestly feel only I can fully appreciate. And Ms. Lambert, a little. It is just as well; I wouldn’t be able to enter into the discussion anyway, because all I can think about is him.
Maybe he is the sorcerer outside my window. And his earthbound ability to render me helpless in English class is hiding some deeper, more terrifying, and worse intoxicating power that I don’t even want to think about, even though I can’t stop thinking about it for fifteen seconds.
At lunch, he sometimes reads under the oak, and I always try to position myself with Lila and Kelly so that I can clearly see his spot without looking directly at it. But today he’s not there either when I plop down with my slice of pizza. So I now can’t wait for lunch to be over, not to mention fifth period. AP Lit is the only time during the day when I’m sure to see him. He seems to have no set schedule, so it’s impossible to bump into him as we move between classes. The whole not-knowing-when-I’ll-see-him-and-never-actually-seeing-him thing has me on edge.
I’m probably just searching for any distraction from worrying about my speech for Bill’s memorial. Honestly, I would rather pull every tooth out of my mouth with rusty pliers than do this. And I haven’t even started writing it, which is completely unlike me.
Kelly actually brings it up at lunch, wondering how I’m doing. I appreciate her asking, but there’s just not much to say. And in a rare moment of poignancy, Lila says, “I miss Bill. He had the best smile.”
He did. It was kind of uneven, tilting up more on the left, like he had a secret. But by nature Bill was forthright, direct, and open. He made everyone comfortable. He’d probably find some way to make me relax about the memorial and come up with something simple and true to say.
Just as I’m enjoying the fact that thinking about the speech has driven whatshisname from my mind, he returns to my thoughts in the person of the most beautiful girl who has ever attended this school. Amanda Porcella simply steps into our circle and sits down with her lunch as if she does it every day.
“Hey guys, mind if I join you?” She starts unwrapping her sandwich without waiting for an answer.
I like Amanda. She is the kind of girl that guys want to be around and girls love to backbite, but I’ve always thought she was really nice and funny. She is probably the most beautiful female ever to live in our town, bright, hardworking, and clearly a decent person. But her beauty unavoidably became her defining trait. She is never conceited, never holds herself above anyone else, but naturally sits at the top of the heap. She’s head cheerleader as a junior (an unheard-of feat), vice president of the student body (guaranteed to be president next year), and half the girls in the school treat her like the self-centered bitch we all expect that kind of girl to be.
I can’t pretend to know her really well, but we see each other out and kid around and enjoy each other when we do. Not that she needs my pity, but I feel bad how unfairly judged she is by females and how she’s sought after by males for lesser reasons than she deserves.
Still, it’s not like she’s ever sat with us at lunch before.
For all my positive thoughts about her, it still kind of surprises me that this particular guy would be interested enough to make her his Daisy. Then again, I don’t really know shit about him.
“Look,” she says hesitantly, “I feel a little weird doing this, but I promised him, so anyway…”
Him? Oh my God. Does she mean “him”?
“What do you think of Matt Fields?”
Oh.
“I think he’s super-hot,” Lila offers.
“He’s a little quiet,” Kelly adds.
“He’s a nice guy,” I say.
“He likes you. He asked me to suss you out.”
Matt is super-hot, and a nice guy, and a really good friend of Gordy’s. If I were in the market for a guy, I’m not sure where he’d fit on my list. But more importantly, I’ve known Matt since third grade, and neither of us has ever shown any romantic interest in the other. We’ve never even flirted at parties or anything. This doesn’t add up.
“Matt Fields?” I ask, trying not to sound as dumbfounded as I feel. “Really? I didn’t think he thought of me that way.”
“Maybe he never thought he had a chance with you. If you want, we could double or something.”
“Double?” I ask innocently, knowing full well where this is going.
“James and I are gonna get a burger at the Seahorse tomorrow night. I can ask M
att and you can come, and just see what happens.”
Think fast.
“I’d love to hang with you, but I think I’d rather bring Gordy. Matt’s a nice guy, but I don’t think of him that way and wouldn’t want to give him the wrong idea.”
I watch her thinking over my bait and switch.
“Cool. That’d be fun. So…seven o’clock? I’ll bring the Twizzlers.”
I laugh. We all saw Twilight in a big group when it came out, and I taught her how to use licorice as a straw for her Mountain Dew. Sophisticated stuff.
“I’m excited to hang. It’s been too long.” She stands to go, but not fast enough for Lila.
“So how long have you and James been together?”
“We started dating two summers ago at Outward Bound.” And then she smiles at me. “Not that it’s necessarily flattering to be compared to Daisy Buchanan.”
I smile back. “The way he put it in class was extremely flattering.”
She already knows that. In the silence I can’t resist asking the thing I know I will hate myself for asking. “So he told you all about that, huh?”
“Yeah.” It’s hard to tell from her tone how she feels about that. “He said you were super-smart.” She waves to the girls and heads down the hill.
“Wow. I didn’t know this kind of stuff happened in real life.” Lila’s eyes are wide.
“Burgers and Twizzlers?”
“No. The queen bee of our school pulling every move in the book to keep your hands off her man.”
As ridiculous as it sounds, and almost certainly is, my heart jumps with a little excitement at even the false accusation that my hands would ever get so lucky.
“My hands.”
“Of course. First, she tries to find you another boy to take you out of circulation by picking the finest unattached guy around. I’ll bet you anything that she told Matt that you’re hot for him. Ask Gordy. I bet he can find out.”
“Okay. Any particular reason why she thinks I’d be competition? I mean, my entire interaction with this guy was one embarrassing argument in AP Lit.”
Kelly intervenes. “I think Lila could be on to something. What if he also mentioned how cute you are?”
“Like raved about your rack!” Lila is president of my rack’s fan club.
“Lila,” Kelly says. “Focus.”
“Okay,” I say. “First of all, how many guys tell their girlfriend that they think another girl is cute? Especially when their girlfriend is Amanda Porcella. Second of all, there were no moves being pulled from any book. She just invited me out with them.”
“Not exactly,” Kelly reminds me. “She invited you on a double date with another guy.”
“Stop it, you guys. Amanda is a good person. I hate it when you rip on her. I guess the thing about being enviable is that people envy you.”
“Ouch.” Kelly grabs her guts as if harpooned.
“Burn!” Lila adds. “Look, I envy you. So if you aren’t into Matt, step aside.”
“Matt’s got nothing on The Weed,” Kelly halfheartedly tries.
I stay on point. “Amanda is the most desirable girl in this town, so it makes sense that he’d want to be with her. I just hope he’ll treat her right.”
At which point the girls mime their famous world’s-smallest violin concert in honor of my deep concern for poor Amanda Porcella.
“Do me one favor.” Lila suddenly seems serious. “Tomorrow night? Keep an open mind. If James Waters has any interest in you, I want your radar fully operational. Don’t shut yourself off the way you do sometimes with guys.” She grins. “And I want immediate details.”
That afternoon I ride my bike to the Noank-Mystic Veterinary Hospital, where I have worked after school since eighth grade. Probably deserving of another violin concert, my connection to poor sick, abandoned, or mistreated animals is emotional to the point where it can interfere with my eating, sleeping, and thoughts. I had lots of pets growing up, two cats named Schmulie and Sharona, a golden retriever named Riggins, a bunch of chicks who followed me around the house like I was their mother even after they grew into disgusting chickens, ten tropical fish, numerous hamster/guinea pig/gerbil guys, a tree frog that lived in my bathroom, and a ferret named Fedora.
Then Tyler developed allergies almost as offensive as his personality, and all living pets were banished to my uncle’s farm (where I still visit them as often as I can), to be replaced by a hypoallergenic Coton de Tulear named Mishka. A lovely, rather foolish, extraordinarily empathetic creature who died just after my sixteenth birthday. Mom, to her credit, has hounded me (no pun intended) to replace Mishka. But so far I haven’t the heart.
The town vet is Dr. French, who is pushing eighty, still super-gorgeous and distinguished, and always treats me like a lady, as opposed to a granddaughter, which I appreciate. He is a perfect person inside and out, and I am blessed to know him and work for him. I started out cleaning cages, feeding and watering, grooming, and shooting off my mouth at people who obviously didn’t respect their animals the way they should. I still do all of the above, but now I sit in on surgeries and even assist, I answer the phone and do billing, and have recently been given the responsibility to recommend adoptions. I love helping the strayed and abandoned find good homes. It sort of renews my faith in the world.
As I’m cleaning out cages, I realize perhaps I’m only fascinated with James because he is an exotic. As if a puma were to be in one of these cages alongside the mutts and mixed breed kitties. He rolls into town, dripping with mystery and braininess that he got from traveling and relating to other exotics. And the juxtaposition is so stark against the L.L. Bean drabness of our town. Not to mention his face. I mean I’ve never seen in real life a guy with a face that you absolutely couldn’t take your eyes off no matter how much you needed to.
“Hey. Hi.”
That voice. It belongs to exactly that face. I freeze. My gloved hands won’t release the mess I’m sweeping from a schnauzer’s temporary home. I’m tingling, inexplicably warm, my stomach has dropped to my knees, and the whole world seems to be slightly shaking.
I regain control of my motor skills and drop the poop, pull off my gloves, and turn around.
It’s really him. I have to sit down. I make it to the seat behind the desk and try to pretend I wasn’t just cleaning up shit.
He’s followed me here. How did he know? Why has he come? And what the hell am I gonna do about it? And I thought he didn’t even know I existed.
“Do you work here?” he asks.
Okay, so he didn’t follow me here. So he doesn’t know I exist. So his eyes are just so hypnotically pale and gray with flecks of violet (which I hadn’t noticed before) that I’m humiliating myself by not even being able to blink. He’s going to say, “Sloane. You’re staring.” If only he knew my name. Which thank God he apparently doesn’t. Oh my God. He asked a question, didn’t he? Come on, brain.
“No. I’m just sitting behind this desk because the person who actually works here likes her seat kept warm while she’s away.”
Why did I say that? I sound so bitchy.
“Awfully nice of you. Maybe sometime you’ll do the same for me.”
Why did he say that? What does that even mean? From another guy that could definitely be a come-on. My mind flashes with images of keeping his seat warm for him.
“I’m hoping to adopt.”
Why can’t we try for natural childbirth first?
“What are you looking for?”
“A dog and a cat. I left mine with my kid sister in San Francisco. And I really, really miss them.”
Incroyable. He loves animals. He’s nothing like I thought he was. He’s a dear, sweet, caring, gentle, perfect, perfect, perfect…person.
“Well, it’s not San Francisco, we have a limited selection, but let’s take a look-see.”
Look-see? I said “look-see”?? I’m a forty-seven-year-old cat lady whom no devastatingly desirable young man would ever fantasize brushing up against on t
he way back to the animal cages. Which is, of course, a lucky thing, seeing as he belongs to my friend. Actually, more of an acquaintance. Which is exactly the wrong way to be thinking. Girls don’t poach other girls’ boyfriends. Right, like I even could.
“So what kind of dog did you have?”
“He was kind of a goofy mixture, some Mexican cross of I-don’t-know-what. I was surfing down in Baja and rescued the poor guy, threw him in my truck, and snuck him across the border, without realizing what an idiot I was for trying to get away with that. He really hit it off with Beckett, my shepherd. I think when Beck died, Churro missed him even more than I did.”
While he was surfing in Baja? He rescued some mutt? And smuggled it across the border? And loved it so much that he can’t wait to adopt another rescue? Wow.
“So what about the cat?” I ask as I reach my hand in to pet an old beagle named Baily.
He pauses for a moment. I glance up, thinking he’s found a pet to adopt. He’s not looking into a cage but straight at me, studying me.
“It’s a little personal, but what the hell. We’re FOS.”
“FO what?”
“Friends of Scott. Fitzgerald, right? Anyway, the cat originally belonged to a girlfriend. And Peaches would, well, sleep with us. Which eventually became sleeping on top of me. When we broke up, me and the gir—not me and the cat—I was awarded custody because apparently Peaches spent the first week of my absence looking for me and pissing on her pillow. Like it was her fault. Which it actually was.”
Sleeping with a girlfriend while he was in high school or, God forbid, even younger. My mind fills with these possibilities: her parents were very understanding. Even in San Francisco, unlikely. They were camp counselors together. Sure, like what camp would put up with that? Only one possibility remained. An older woman with her own place. Yikes.
“I was actually going to bring him…”
“Peaches? Him?”
“Yeah, he and I are very secure in our masculinity. But when he saw my bags being packed, he started sleeping with my sister, and she sort of got attached.”
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